Brad Bird’s ‘Ray Gunn’ Sets December 18 Netflix Release, Unveils First-Look Images

Brad Bird (“The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille,” “The Iron Giant”) has finally made his 30-years-in-the-making passion project, “Ray Gunn.” We have more info on this film, which is coming out this fall.

This morning, at the Annecy Film Festival, Bird unveiled two new first-look images of “Ray Gunn,” above and below, and announced a December 18 Netflix streaming date. No word yet on a theatrical rollout, but I presume a very limited one will happen for Oscar eligibility.

During the talk, audiences were treated to the opening seven minutes of the film, which begins with a heist in a “visually gorgeous, fully realized futuristic city.”

Set in Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future as imagined from the perspective of 1939, the film revolves around private eye Raymond Gunn—voiced by Sam Rockwell—who is drawn into a case involving aliens, murder, and a multimedia star named Venus Nova, voiced by Scarlett Johansson.

Back in 2024, after years in limbo, Netflix stepped in as the only studio willing to back its hefty $150M budget. Skydance/Paramount were producing. A predictably testy collaboration followed after the whole Warner Bros debacle.

Bird’s animated noir has recently become the center of a tug-of-war between its creative team and Netflix, with Bird’s camp pushing for a significant theatrical release, including an IMAX run. They argued that the film’s ambitious visuals and animation would benefit from a large-format theatrical presentation before its planned Netflix debut. Those efforts were unsuccessful.

There are also reported internal disagreements over the film’s final runtime and rating. Netflix is reportedly pushing for a more family-friendly PG classification, so that the film could also appear on the streamer’s kids platform, while the project’s tone may lean toward something more intensely PG-13.